


or something

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Anxiety Attacks, Claustrophobia, Handcuffed Together, Non-binary character, Other, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3143948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's good to know that at least he's stuck with a vampire who's as much of a loser as he is. At least there's that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> this has been in my drafts since late september / early october, so i figured i ought to start posting what i have of it so far and possibly motivate myself to finish it.
> 
> (i'm horrible at summaries but this is basically just a vampire au, except they're tiny baby teenagers, and also it's kind of like the cliche where two people who don't really like each other get handcuffed together and have to work as a team to get out. cool.)

It's supposed to be one of those stupid things kids dare each other to do at slumber parties, you know, like the whole Bloody Mary thing or Ouija boards or ringing the doorbell on the local "haunted" house. It was never supposed to actually _work_.

"So," Dan says, brushing dry leaves off his hoodie, "you're like Dracula or something?"

The shape in the tree huffs and folds his arms across his chest (is it a he? Dan can't tell).

"Dracula was a mad man who killed people, not a vampire, alright? And my name's not Dracula, it's Phil."

They jump down from the tree and into the pale light of the dark cemetery and land right in front of Dan, who can now clearly see their face under their hood. Besides the fact that they're perched in a creepy tree in a fucking _cemetery_ , they look like any other normal (if incredibly pale) person. No sparkly skin, no protruding fangs, no Victorian clothes or cloak or anything. Just some skinny guy in a hoodie and beat up sneakers in desperate need of a haircut.

"Besides, that's not even the most important thing," the vampire, Phil, continues, "Where'd you get a spell that powerful anyways? One minute I was minding my own business, about to eat breakfast, when I get yanked over here by something and meet you. My cereal'll be all mushy by the time I get back, thanks a lot."

"It's not my fault!" Dan eventually interrupts, "How was I supposed to know it was a real spell?"

"Oh, so you just go out to abandoned cemeteries in the middle of the night and recite ancient spells for fun then?" Phil counters, "What kind of lunatic does that?"

A light flicks on in one of the houses nearby and a loud shush echos across the road. Dan realizes how loud they've been shouting and he grabs his new supernatural friend's arm to drag them into the grove of trees, only stopping when the glow of the windows isn't visible anymore.

"Well then why haven't you left already?" Dan whispers fervently as he makes sure they're definitely hidden, "Why haven't you just turned back into a bat and flown home to your precious cereal or whatever?"

The vampire ( _Phil_ , his name is Phil, Dan, keep up) pulls their arm back and rolls their eyes.

"First off, we can't just turn into bats, alright? We can teleport and move really fast, but the bat thing is complete crap. Second, if I could've, don't you think I'd already be gone?"

At Dan's confused look, they holds their hand out. "Give me the spell you read."

Dan pulls out the piece of paper he'd been reading off of out of his pocket, a page torn from a library book he'd found a few weeks ago.

Upon seeing the ripped half page, Phil raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything, accepting it and scanning the page as they say, "I tried earlier, before you noticed I was there, but whenever I tried to apparate away, there was this tugging feeling in my chest and I couldn't leave."

"Apparate?" Dan says incredulously as Phil continues to look for whatever they think is in the spell.

"Vampires can be Harry Potter fans too," they say offhandedly before making a soft noise of triumph and pointing at a particularly illegible line. "Found it!" they say, "Here, look."

It's only a bunch of Latin gibberish to Dan, stuff he could pronounce but didn't actually know what it meant.

"It's a binding spell," Phil continues, holding the paper closer to their face, "It makes it so whoever you summon can't leave until... I dunno what that's supposed to say." Their Latin's a bit rusty, if Phil's being completely honest, and the fact that half of the page is gone doesn't help.

It takes a couple seconds for it to process, but when the wheels in Dan's head finish turning, he says, "Wait, so you're stuck here? Like, you can't do your magic teleporting thing in general, or you're stuck with me specifically?"

Phil shrugs, still pouring over the little bit of information they have. "I'm not sure," they say, turning the paper over and over in their hands, "You don't have the whole spell here, it's not finished. That's bad enough as is, but until I can see the rest of the incantation I can't tell."

They start moving back towards the entrance of the cemetery, headed who knows where, before Dan stops them and pulls them back into the shelter of the trees.

"What are you doing?" he hisses, "You can't just go out there like that."

Phil looks at him weirdly before Dan explains, "You're a vampire? People might see you? Any of this ringing a bell?"

Shaking Dan's hand off their shoulder, Phil just gives him a look that borders on pitying as they say, "Dan. Do I look like a vampire stereotype to you?"

Of course, now that he thinks about it, there isn't any really outside signifiers to the fact Phil is anything other than human. He considers this for a moment before countering, "Well then how do I even know you are one? How do I know this hasn't been just a prank the whole time?"

Phil takes a deep breath in and out in an effort to not get too exasperated because really, at this point, all they want to do is find the rest of the spell so they can deal with it and go home. They wrack their brain to come up with a way to quickly prove it so they can all just move on, but at this point most of their "powers" so to speak are limited by the fragment of a spell.

"Look," they say, "how about this..." They open their mouth as wide as possible, and there's a split second where Dan is afraid he's about to be eaten before he realizes Phil's not moving towards him.

"What am I supposed to...?" Dan trails off as he actually looks at his mouth and sees the abnormally sharp canines there. "Alright," he conceded leaning closer to inspect what he assumes are supposed to be Phil's fangs, "But how do I know you're not just some weirdo with really pointy teeth?"

Closing their mouth, Phil thinks about it for a second, taking inventory of whatever tricks they're left with. No super speed or teleporting, fangs not enough, it's the middle of the night so there's no harsh lights. To be honest, the few times they've ever had to convince someone of what they are, the fangs have been pretty much enough to seal the deal. They've never had to actually _prove_ it to anyone, and, outside of actually draining someone's blood, they're not sure how to do it.

"Hang on," they say, going back through their list of options, "Have you got a pocket knife or something?"

Dan crosses his arms and gives them a look that says "do I look like the kind of person to just carry around a knife?" before saying flatly, "No."

Phil looks around them, but a forest isn't much help when looking for something sharp. They sigh forlornly before rolling up the sleeve of their left arm and running a fingernail along the back of it. A fingernail that is apparently sharp enough to completely cut through their skin until Dan is pretty sure he could see bone.

"Oh my god, what the hell?" he says, quickly covering his eyes and turning away. It's not enough for him to unsee it though.

"No, just look again, okay," Phil says, arm still held out and apparently unphased by the fact that they just sliced their own arm open.

"Are you kidding me?" Dan shrieks, feeling completely justified in his reaction, "No way, you weirdo! I don't wanna see you maim yourself any more, thank you."

Eventually, however, the curiosity become too much and he uncovers his eyes and slowly turns back around. When he does chance lowering his eyesight to the wound on Phil's arm, he's more than a bit confused to see it perfectly fine, except for one edge where it looks like the skin is just... sewing itself back together?

"What on earth..." he takes Phil's arm, inspecting where he was sure there was a gaping wound just a moment before.

He's still looking incredulously at the miraculously unmarred skin when Phil starts talking. "See," they say, somewhat tired sounding, "I told you, vampire."

"Do it again then," Dan demands before realizing what he's said, "Wait, no, I take it back, please don't do that ever again, I believe you, alright?" He shudders, thinking back to the second before he had realized what he was seeing and had turned away. Gross.

"I didn't wanna have to do it," Phil says as they roll their sleeve back down, "But there's not much else I could do if the fangs didn't convince you." Dan nods in agreement until Phil adds, "Unless you wanted to see me suck someone's blood or something."

"Nooo," Dan shakes his head, more vehemently than the first time, "I'm good, thanks."

Phil goes back to peering through the trees, keeping a lookout for anyone who might be wandering stupidly past a graveyard in October in the middle of the night. Apparently the only person dumb enough to do that was the person standing next to them, so once finally establishing that the coast was clear, the pair start tiptoeing out onto the street and around the corner as Dan tugs Phil's arm in the direction he can only assume leads to his house.

"Hold on a second," Phil says. Ever since they actually read the spell, they had been wondering what the limits of the binding were exactly. They wave for Dan to continue on walking without them, who looks confused but does so anyway. The road is fairly straight, and Phil can see Dan get about five blocks away before they get the feeling like their ears are popping and there's the familiar whooshing sound as they appear directly next to Dan.

"Woah," Dan says in an almost deadpan voice, now used to the constant surprises and unable to be shocked at this point, "So that's the teleport-y thing?"

"Yeah," Phil says, shaking their hair away from their face where it'd been blown around by whatever that just was. They start walking back to Dan's house again as Phil continues, "So I guess that's as far apart as we can get. That's pretty close for a medium strength binding spell, usually you can get about a good mile or two away before you get yanked back."

"Is that a good sign or a bad sign?" Dan asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets to try and retain some semblance of body warmth. The night has grown even darker as the clouds blow over to cover the moon and a wind has picked up, blowing the brittle fallen leaves down the abandoned streets and into their faces. Phil is just about to say something when one flies directly into their mouth. Fortunately, it's a massive leaf, so they dodn't end up accidentally eating it, but it's enough for them to start spluttering and spitting the leaf flavor out of their mouth. The glare they shoot Dan when he starts laughing isn't as venomous as it had been earlier, and maybe they should thank the wind for breaking the tension in the overly serious bubble they'd been stuck in. Of course, too busy laughing to see where he's going, Dan then trips over a crack in the pavement and sends Phil into hysterics as well.

Once they've calmed down a bit, Phil realizes they may have come across as a bit of an asshole, so they try to make peace by asking what Dan likes to do when he's not busy summoning supernatural beings.

He laughs at that, leading them around the corner down yet another house lined street. "I dunno," he says, "This is pretty much it. I've not really got a lot of friends, but I can't say this is my normal Sunday night."

"Mine either," Phil says, kicking a rock out into the middle of the empty road, "If the fact that I was home alone eating cereal wasn't enough of a clue for you, I don't have much of a life either. I'm not even gonna go into how this is probably the most human interaction I've had in a long while... I don't mean actual human," they amend, seeing the weird look Dan is giving them, "No, like, just the phrase, not like that."

Dan just hums in response as he points them down the next street, leaves swirling around them in the gutters and the moon finally revealing itself again from behind the dusting of clouds overhead. It's good to know that at least he's stuck with a vampire who's as much of a loser as he is. At least there's that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah! chapter one! i don't really know where this is going so we'll see! (so ratings / tags / etc. may change, although i highly doubt it.) and only half of it is written so far, and i usually try to finish things before i start posting them, but i mean #yolo.
> 
> (also, i don't know if i'll outright address it _in the story_ , and you may be able to tell from the tags already, but phil is nonbinary. alright, cool, jsyk. and idk how to tag m/nb cuz there's nO TAG FOR THAT so that's to explain the weird category thing.)


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapterrrr two!! i've mostly finished writing the rest at this point, so it's only editing stuff i've got left to do but i like it! i like where i'm going with this, confidence in my writing is a relatively new thing for me so. yeah.

The two keep up the polite conversation on their way to Dan's house, enough that one might even call it friendly. Once they get to his backyard, however, Dan remembers why exactly they were walking around at night in the first place, and that the person he was talking to was still distinctly not human.

"So, uh," Dan says, gesturing at the house, "I guess we should figure out a way to get us unbound or whatever."

He gently pushes open the unlocked back door and tiptoes in, only realizing Phil hasn't follow when he turns back to close the door.

"What're you doing?" he asks, staring at Phil, who shuffles their feet a little and stuff their hands in their pockets, looking for all the world like an adorable kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar. Only they were a fully grown vampire standing on Dan's back porch.

"Okay, so you know how I said all of that old Dracula stuff was crap?" Phil says, finally looking back up from their feet, "Well, there's that whole thing about having to be invited in, right? That one... might... be true."

"Nice," Dan replies, shaking his head and smiling. Of course one of the least threatening things a vampire could be is real.

"Well, in that case," he steps back and gestures to the empty living room, "Phil the vampire, would you like to come inside?"

Phil nods, crossing the threshold and taking off their shoes as Dan carefully closes the door behind him.

Dan raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything, choosing instead to take off his own shoes and grab both pairs as he points to the stairs at the other end of the room.

They quietly make their way upstairs to Dan's room, only having one small run in with a particularly creaky floorboard in the hallway. When they get to the room well enough, Dan flops onto his unmade bed with a quiet sigh.

Phil hovers around in the corner until they cave and break the silence by saying, "So, what're we going to do about the whole being-stuck-together thing?"

Another sigh comes from Dan, who turns over onto his front and props his head up on his hands tiredly. It's a lot to process for all having happened in only the past half hour.

"I dunno," he ends up saying, "I'm too brain dead to think up any plans right now. Can we talk about this in the morning?"

He stares back up at the ceiling, tipping onto his side slightly as the bed dips and Phil sits next to him gingerly. They sit in the quiet for a few hours in the dark and the quiet, until the clouds rolling outside the window start to get a warm tinge to them as Phil watches on nervously.

Dan, somewhere in a weird state between sleep and awareness, notices this, and sits up completely, rubbing his eyes and yawning, "Should we find you somewhere out of the sun for the day, is that a real-life vampire thing?"

Phil blinks, mostly out of surprise at this point, and turns to look at Dan, hair sticking up in the back and jumper rumpled, absolutely adorable, and they have the sudden urge to just tackle him with hugs. Shaking out that stray thought, Phil answers, "That it is. What's your closet like?"

Dan squints his eyes as Phil hops up and pulls open the door leading to a fairly large closet, the floor of which is covered in random clothes and boxes. They [assess] it for a moment, stepping inside and shutting the door behind them. If they can find a blanket or something to stuff under the edge of the door, it should be enough to keep out the sunlight for the day. Hopefully by tomorrow this whole thing would be sorted out and they wouldn't have to resort to living in a closet forever.

When they step back out, it's to see Dan, still only half awake, already changed into a different pair of jeans and struggling to pull his jumper off as it's gotten caught on his head. It's two parts adorable and one part hot and Phil has to look away for a second before clearing their throat and saying, "Uh, you doing alright over there?"

Apparently Dan is too tired to feel embarrassed and just gives a sigh of defeat before letting his arms drop and nodding. Of course, because of the sweater stuck to his head, he looks even more ridiculous than he would normally, but Phil doesn't mention it as Dan says, "Yeah, I might need some help."

Or at least, that's what Phil thinks they hear, although it's pretty muffled by the fabric bunched up in front of his face. Nevertheless, they reach out to tug on the sweater until it eventually gets unstuck from Dan's head. They want to make a joke about how big his head must be to get stuck like that, but they're very conscious of the fact that Dan's only half dressed now, so they busy themself by gathering some of the blankets off the bed and bringing them over to the closet as Dan finishes getting dressed for school.

After making a suitable nest, basically, and fussing around with it for long enough, Phil sticks their head out to see Dan putting his sneakers back on, fully dressed and and sitting on his bed in front of the window where the sun can just be seen on the horizon.

"Guess it's a good thing it's winter then, huh?" Dan says when he sees Phil looking worriedly out the window, "Do you think you'll be alright in there all day? I've got school until around three, but the sun’ll set pretty soon after that, I think.”

He sees Phil nod from where they're leaning half out of the doorway, so he picks up his backpack and heads towards the hallway as he says, “Don’t worry, you should be fine until then. I don’t think anyone’s going to be searching through my closet any time soon. And sorry about the mess in there, I didn’t think I’d be having guests in my closet any time soon.”

Phil is about to say something in return when some of the clouds move and the sun really starts coming through. They both wince, Phil because of the actual light and Dan because he knows what it means, and he quickly goes over to pull the curtains shut, keeping out the worst of it.

“Sorry,” Phil says, ducking fully back into the closet and half closing the door behind them, “The sun...”

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Dan cuts him off, poking his head in the closet as well, “I’ll be back before you know it, alright? Try and come up with a plan in the meantime or something, I dunno,” and with that he leaves, shutting both doors behind him, and Phil settles in for a good eight hours of thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe its been almost a month since i first published this :o i genuinely did not notice the time pass, i've just been a little swamped with school and then i got a _weeeee_ bit distracted by writing other things, but i'm back!
> 
> (also ao3 somehow turned off my email notifications for comments so i missed all the lovely things you all had to say, but thank u so much!!)


	3. three

Luckily, Dan only lives four blocks from school, so he's well within the boundaries of the spell or curse or whatever and doesn't have to worry about walking to the far side of the building for maths and having Phil randomly pop up in the middle of the classroom. Dan shudders to think how he'd explain that away as he bounds up the stairs and makes his way to his first class.

He's sliding into his seat and pulling out his books when there's a familiar tap on his shoulder. Looking back, Dan sees his best friend PJ smiling at him from behind his spare glasses (it's a Monday, everyone's too tired to care about anything) and waving a quiet hello.

"Hey Peej, how's it going?" he asks, turning around enough to talk to him properly.

"Pretty good," PJ says as he goes to reach for his backpack, "Over the weekend I got some work done on that project I was telling you about, the cardboard thing, and it’s almost done. Wanna see?"

He opens his backpack, pulling out something that looks like the child of a cardboard box and an extreme Rubik's cube. It's roughly the size and shape of a kid's football, but instead of black and white and round, it's colorful and spiky and has a hinge in the side.

Dan takes it carefully and it’s heavy, with what he doesn't know, and he gingerly turns it over in his hands.

"What even is this?" he asks, "It's like a weird alien egg or something, this is so cool!"

PJ is smiling and about to explain what it has to do with his latest film project when the bell rings and class starts. He takes the ball back, stowing it in his bag as he leans forward to whisper, "Hey, are you doing anything later? Maybe we can hang out and play Halo or something, since I kind of ignored you all weekend."

Dan's leaning back to say yes when he remembers that there's... kind of something he has to deal with back home. "I can't," he says apologetically, "I kind of ignored all my homework and I'm gonna have a lot of catching up to do."

He breathes a sigh of relief as PJ chuckles and leans back, figuring he's bought himself another day or two to figure the whole vampire thing out. Would that he knew what to do with those hours though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE BECOME MY OWN WORST NIGHTMARE
> 
> I AM THE AUTHOR THAT ONLY UPDATES ONCE A MONTH, IF EVEN THAT
> 
> 12YO IS PROBABLY SCREAMING AT ME RIGHT NOW
> 
> anyways so short chapter times since this section was kind of weird to break into parts, and super sorry i ever so _vaguely_ forgot about this bc i suck unu


	4. four

Meanwhile, back in Dan's closet, Phil wasn't doing so well. They're not great with enclosed spaces at the best of times, but being stuck in a three foot square space with the threat of being discovered constantly looming over them for several hours at a time leaves them a bit worse for wear.

They try to distract themself, to come up with some plan to get out of this situation, but every time they start to think of something of substance, a tree branch shakes outside the window or some other shadow crosses the tiny slit of light at the bottom of the door and they panic. Even though they don't need to breathe to live, being a vampire and all, they start to hyperventilate and curl up in a ball. There's not enough air, there's not enough room, and all they want is to go home.

As much of a shock it must've been for Dan to realize vampires exist, it's twenty times worse for Phil, being trapped in an uncomfortably new place, away from everything familiar, with the distinct possibility and even likeliness that they'll be found out, and who knows what would happen to them then.

They start to get light headed, which is stupid because they're a vampire with superhuman abilities and they  _still_  feel faint, and at one point they might actually pass out from exhaustion and stress, but who could blame them? Regardless, they're not the best at handling stress normally, and this is beyond normal circumstance.

When they do come around again, the crappy alarm clock Dan had shoved in the closet last minute told them it was barely past noon. They slump more against the back wall of their virtual prison, hitting the small of their back painfully on something. It turns out to be a box and, even though they know they probably shouldn't be invaded Dan's privacy like this, they're stuck in there and it's all Dan's fault, so they pull at the flaps until they can get to the contents of the box.

Sadly, it isn't really anything they can use as blackmail or anything (although Phil doubts they're capable of or would want to do something that malicious), as it’s just a bunch of what looks like notebooks and sheet music. Their eyes eventually acclimate to the ambient light and they start to go through every piece of paper

All the notebooks are full of music, some of them seeming to have only lyrics, but most being sheet music and hastily drawn staffs on lined notebook paper.

Phil doesn't really have a lot of musical experience, but from what they can tell, they all seem to be for piano, music for left and right hands, and some even with words under the staff.

It distracts them for a second, trying to see if they can recognize any of it and wondering how long Dan's been playing piano and writing music, before they remember that it's just another sign that they don't really know Dan at all. They're basically completely at the mercy of someone and they don't even know his last name. There's a reason his parents always told him not to trust humans, you could never know who they really were, even if you'd known them for years. And here they were, stuck in the closet of a boy they apparently don’t know anything about.

They're still freaking out about it when they hear the click of the outside door a few hours later and footsteps ascending the stairs towards them. Thankfully it doesn't send them into another panic attack, but instead makes them hyper aware of every sound in the no longer empty house. The footsteps are about to reach them when they finally hear it.

"Phil?"

They're familiar enough with Dan's voice to recognize him at this point and they calm down a little before whispering out their own, "Still in here."

"Hang on a sec, I'm gonna open the door, so make sure you're under the blankets or something."

They have just a second to make sure they're fully covered by fleece blankets before the door cracks open just enough for Dan to slip through, still wearing his backpack and shoes.

Once the door is closed fully behind him, Phil pokes their head out of the pile ever so slightly to hear Dan say, "I guess you're okay then. Nothing happened while I was gone, right?"

Both being abnormally tall for their "age" (which reminds Dan, how old is Phil anyway?), there isn't really enough room for them both to sit on the floor, so they're practically on top of each other, legs completely tangled together that it'll probably be painful to get up later.

Phil nods as they try to sit closer to the wall to give Dan more space, kicking the box of sheet music in their attempt.

Dan sees the open box and few pages scattered on the floor and he's torn between being afraid and embarrassed. "Oh," he says as Phil realizes he's not cleaned it all up and packs away the last couple of notebooks, "So I guess you found that then."

Still holding one notebook, Phil looks up and clears his throat somewhat guiltily, saying, "Yeah, um, they're really good. I mean, I can't actually read them, but they look like they'd sound good."

Thanks to his vampire night vision, he can see the blush on Dan's cheeks as he sucks his head and accepts the books Phil offers him.

"Thanks, I guess?" he says, shuffling the loose papers until they're in the right order, "They're just something I do when I'm bored, I don't know why I keep them all."

"Well, maybe you can show me what they sound like some time," he replies.

Dan laughs and shakes his head slightly as he kicks the box back into the corner. "So," he says once he's made enough room to sit comfortably, "Did you have any bright ideas while I was gone?"

Phil thinks about all that happened while Dan was gone and the crawling feeling of remembering why he was panicking comes back, itching at his too tight skin and pulling his legs up to his chest again.

He knows Dan notices him curling up and drawing in on himself and that he figures out what's going on, and there's nothing worse than that feeling that everyone pities you even when they don't really know you at all.

Dan feels the tiniest bit uncomfortable, but only because he knows how it feels and they aren't comfortable enough with each other for him to do anything to make it not as bad. He reaches out his hand an inch or two towards Phil's knee closest to him before drawing back, figuring its best he not do anything.

"We'll figure something out," he says as he sits up and folds his legs under him, "Now that we know school is close enough to not cause any problems, it'll buy us some time."

They sit there in silence until they hear the front door slam shut and footsteps making their way upstairs.

"Dan? Are you up there?"

Dan quickly jumps up, almost knocking down the hangers in his haste. He piles the rest of the blankets on top of Phil's head haphazardly as he'd been frozen and unresponsive, before flinging the closet open just as his mom opens the door.

"Hey there, how was your day? Are you okay?" she adds when she sees the slightly bewildered look on his face.

Dan eases the door shut behind him with one hand as the other reaches up to fix his hair. The back of his shirt is about to get caught in the door when Phil reaches out the tiniest bit to push it out of the way, thankfully covered by Dan's body as he quickly shakes his head and leans back against the door.

His mom looks concerned but doesn't say anything and she turns around and walks back out to the hallway.

"Well alright then," she calls over her shoulder as she starts walking down the stairs, "But don't forget to do the laundry, your closet looks like it's about to burst."

The second her retreating figure is out of sight, Dan darts forward and shuts the door, leaning heavily against it and letting out the breath he'd been holding in.

"Is she gone yet?"

Phil's muffled voice brings Dan out of the tiny spiral of worry he's been headed towards and he remembers that oh yeah, Phil doesn't actually know they're okay.

"Yeah," he says as he slips back into the closet and sits on the floor, "she left. But I'm gonna have to go do my chores pretty soon or she'll get suspicious and/or mad."

There's a brief pause between when Phil nods in understanding and when Dan actually gets up to leave.

"I'll be back after dinner," he says, "Or I might be able sneak back up here and say I'm doing my homework or something."

The shape of Phil under the blankets shrugs and watches as Dan carefully pushes open the door again, making sure to fully close it behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my most sporadic posting schedule ever, but i've finally figured out how long this is going to be! i'm reformatting some of the middle chapters, but i'm really excited for y'all to see where this is going!! i say that too much, i'm sorry. anyway, thanks for reading!!!


	5. five

As he goes to collective frightening large pile of dirty clothes at the foot of his bed, a feeling not unlike guilt and helplessness washes over Dan as the gravity of the situation starts to settle in.

He's basically been keeping a complete stranger in his closet all day, who is who only stuck there because of him, who had had some kind of breakdown or panic attack earlier, and who was _still_ stuck in there. In the past twenty-four hours, so many things he'd thought were true weren't in the slightest. For fucks sake, _vampires_ were _real_ , which makes no sense at all, but he can't dispute it because he has one hidden _in his room_.

One of the most irritatingly stubborn people he’d ever met was stuck with him for the foreseeable future, and somehow they’d each not torn the other’s throat out yet. In fact, they had come to some weird mutual understand and might even become friends if this goes on long enough.

But he’s lied to his parents, his friends, Phil, _himself_ , and done all these weird things he’d never imagined himself doing or saying or believing. And now he was supposed to just go about his normal life like everything was fine and his entire world hadn’t been changed the night before.

As he went through the motions of doing all his chores, Dan wonders if things like ghosts and such are real too. Has Phil ever met one? He’ll have to ask them. That’d be so cool. Is there some kind of secret society of supernatural beings, where they talk about staying unnoticed and trade spells or whatever? Oh man, what about magic?

He’s halfway upstairs when his mom stops him, poking her head around the corner and saying, “Dan? Can you come back down here for a second?”

He tries not to look suspicious as he heads back down to the kitchen, where she’s sitting at the table on her computer. She looks up when he enters, tilting the screen down to look over it at him.

“So, have you done your chores then?” She says.

Dan shuffles to get a better grip on the laundry basket in his arms before nodding and lifting it up for her to see.

“How’s the homework going?”

“I was just going upstairs to do that,” he answers, nervously hopping from foot to foot a little.

She nods reluctantly before finally getting to her point.

“Are you okay?” She asks, “You’ve been very twitchy lately, is everything alright with school and all?”

There’s a look in his eyes for the briefest of seconds that just seems _exhausted_ before he blinks and it’s gone.

“No,” he says as he moves away to go back upstairs, “but I’ve got a lot of homework that I should go do though.”

She lets him go, even though he didn’t actually give her a satisfactory answer. When he gets back to the top of the stairs, he takes a moment to just breathe, glad he’d not accidentally blurted out everything.

Dan spends the rest of the afternoon on the floor of the closet with Phil, alternating between talking and occasionally actually doing his homework. With music playing just this side of “too loud” from his bed, there’s enough cover for them to talk freely without having to be afraid of a) someone hearing what they were talking about, and b) someone hearing them at all. Eventually he forgets that they’re even hiding or that Phil is a vampire, it just feels like hanging out with a friend.

When the sun finally goes down, after dinner and everyone else has gone to bed, they quietly sneak out the back door and head towards the forest they had been in the night before.

The first thing Phil does when they get out of sight of the house is spread their arms out as wide as possible and tilts their head back to face the cloudy stars.

Dan is worried for a couple seconds before he remembers that the bat thing isn’t real. Then he’s just confused.

“Claustrophobic?” He inquires once Phil seems to return to this plane of existence.

“More like death-ophobic,” Phil shrugs and says, “Which I guess is kind of ironic seeing as I’m undead and all. I guess it’s kind of also a being-found-out-and-exposing-the-secret-of-my-entire-species-phobic.”

Dan nods and turns around to walk backwards so he can face Phil as he says, “Thanatophobia, by the way.” He notices Phil’s confusion and explains, “Fear of death, don’t ask why I know that. I dunno if there’s a word for that other one, though I’m gonna guess there’s probably not.”

He almost trips over his own feet as Phil rolls his eyes fondly and calls him a nerd. It’s just because he can’t see where he’s going and tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, not that he thought the way Phil smiled as they said it was hopelessly adorable and his heart had stopped working for a second.

Phil must misinterpret his stumble and wide-eyed look, thinking they must’ve crossed a line, so they both continue in silence.

“I didn’t mean to be such a dick to you when we first met,” Dan blurts out in an attempt to stop the awkward silence, “It was just kind of a stressful situation for me, finding out that one of the things I was most afraid of in the world was actually real. I mean, of all the things to be afraid of, it had to be something that wasn’t real. And then, on top of that, it turns out it is! So, sorry about that.”

“I’m sorry for being a condescending twat too,” Phil lets out, relieved at finally being able to let it out, “It was all just kind of terrifying and I was really uncomfortable. But I don’t wanna mess up whatever our being stuck together is and I really wanna be your friend but I’m afraid I already screwed this up too much.” They say it as quickly as possible, as if maybe that could make it less cringe-worthy. (It didn’t).

Thankfully he’d already turned around and could see where he was going, or else Dan would’ve tripped over his own feet again. So he doesn’t have to worry about actually killing himself, but the tension might do it anyways. The amount of time before either of them say anything just keeps making it worse.

Eventually Phil stops walking, not unlike when they first met two nights ago, and looks at him with a half sad, half content expression, and Dan kind of feels like he’s going to be sick, but also not, but mostly just really nervous.

He isn’t nervous for long, because it takes all of two seconds for Phil’s arms to wrap around him. It starts out the tiniest bit awkward, but it doesn’t stay that way for long as Dan relaxes and leans into him. All the tension Dan had been holding in the past few days leaks out into that hug, and when they eventually pull apart, it feels like something was fixed that he never knew was broken.

“Better?” Phil asks, and Dan laughs a little as he falls back in step with them.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he agrees, smiling slightly at how their walking is perfectly synchronized. Huh.

“So,” he looks back up to see Phil regarding the clouds with an obviously fake nonchalance, “Any thoughts on how to get us unstuck?”

Dan quickly changes the subject, asking what other supernatural powers Phil’s been hiding, and that’s thankfully enough to occupy them for the rest of the night. Now if only he could come up with an actual plan…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: *has finals week*  
> posting schedule for everything: *goes to shit*  
> me: *gives up and will post updates whenever i have time even though i've already written all of it bc i want to space things out and also enjoy others' pain*


	6. six

They’re sitting on the floor of Dan’s closet, shut in to avoid the bright rays of light threatening to squeeze through the crack under the door, when Dan eventually thinks of it.

“Hey Phil,” he says, tugging at the blanket the vampire is currently hiding under, “I’ve just thought of something; how are we going to get you to the library if you can’t go out in the light?”

There’s a shuffling sound and Dan can barely make out the shape of Phil’s head as they emerge slightly from their cocoon of darkness.

“What do you mean?” he asks, “Why can’t you just borrow it and bring it back here?”

Dan ducks his head, even though he knows Phil can’t really see the embarrassed flush on his face. Unless he can? He’s still not sure how that particular superpower works yet.

“Um...” he draws out as long as possible before letting the word die off into silence.

“What?” Phil prompts after its apparent Dan has no intention of continuing, “I can hear your heart rate’s sped up, what’ve you done?”

“Okay,” Dan starts, “so it _may_ be that I had too many late fees at the end of last month, and it _may_ be that I actually never returned any of the books and they’re still under my bed, and they _may_ have... revokedmycardforawholeyear.” The last part rushes out all at once, too fast for even Phil’s super hearing to decipher.

Dan can feel Phil’s questioning look, even though he can’t see it and sighs before saying again, “They revoked my card for another year, alright?”

Choosing to ignore the “another” in that sentence, Phil instead starts trying to think of ways to get the book as Dan continues, “That’s why I had to tear out the page in the first place, I wouldn’t otherwise but I couldn’t check it out and every time I tried to take a picture of the page I needed, the words got all squiggly and blurry.”

“That’s not a good sign,” Phil muses, still trying to come up with an alternate plan that doesn’t involve him burning to death, “You can’t just take the book without actually checking it out then?”

Dan shakes his head before remembering that Phil can’t actually see him that well and instead saying, “Nope, I’ve tried that before and got caught. They know me too well by now, they’d notice.”

“I suppose we could just wait till the next overcast day, that can’t be too long now, can it?” Phil suggests as he pulls the blanket further off his head, the light having grown more dim since Dan had returned, “I can go out if it’s cloudy, it only hurts a little bit, and the sooner we get that spell, the sooner I can go home.”

Dan nods absentmindedly again as he files away the new vampire information, in case it comes up later. “It’s supposed to be cloudy again Friday, might even rain,” he says, “We can go after I get home from school, that way there won’t be many other people there, what with everyone else having plans for the weekend and, y’know, actual lives.”

He peeks under the door, checking to see if the sun’s fully gone down yet, before reaching up to the doorknob to leave. Before he can even twist the knob, however, he feels Phil’s hand on his arm, stopping him. Now being dark enough for Phil’s creepy vampire night vision to kick in, Dan knows he can see the questioning raise of his eyebrow as he looks back and doesn’t say anything.

“Nothing,” Phil replies, but still doesn’t let go of his arm, “It’s just... It’s nice in here, that’s all. Especially now that you’re back, being stuck in a dark closet all day by yourself gets kinda lonely after a while.”

Dan sits back down, tugging one corner of the blanket until there’s enough for him to sit under it, and they watch the sunset completely disappear from under the closet door. And if their hands keep inching closer and closer to each other until they’re practically touching, they don’t say anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little vignette that really works best on it's own. aside from the ending, i think this might be my favorite part of this. actually, the next string of three chapters or so are my favorites. nice!!


	7. seven

The rest of the week passes much the same as the last two days had; Dan goes to school and is both the normal bored-out-of-his-skull and the new worried-someone-will-go-through-his-room, Phil stays hidden in the closet (which prompts _many_ in-the-closet jokes, most along the lines of, “So, as a bisexual, non-binary vampire, you _really_ don’t exist, don’t you?”), and, once the sun sets, both going outside to either test the limits of the spell, have Phil show off their vampire powers, or (more often than not) just sit on the grass of Dan’s backyard and talk.

Several times Dan’s mom almost catches them sneaking back in right before the sun rises, walking into the hallway just as a nervous looking Dan, still dressed in his clothes from the day before, stands in front of his bedroom door that is creaking shut behind him and splutters some excuse about a midnight snack or something before disappearing into the room as well.

Its Friday morning when she finally confronts him about it, sitting down on his bed just as he’s about to leave for school.

“Dan, sit down,” she starts, patting the spot next to her until he finally takes it, a look on his face like he’s dreading whatever’s coming next, “you know if you were seeing someone, you could tell me, right?”

Whatever he had been expecting, it definitely wasn’t that. He stops bouncing up and down and looks at her like she’s grown a third head.

“What?” he says, “What are you talking about?”

“I know you’re sneaking out at night,” she continues calmly, not hearing what sounds suspiciously like snickering coming from the direction of the closet, “And I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to hide from me. Is it that boy I saw you walking around with the other night?”

“Are you serious?” Dan says, thinking back to the night before (or maybe it was morning by that time) when he and Phil had finally ventured past the backyard to wander through the park down the street, much less confining. She must’ve seen them from the window as they walked back or something.

“No, I’m not- Mom, I just- no.”

She gives him a look like she doesn’t believe him, but nods anyway. “Alright,” she says, “But just remember, you can always talk to me about this kind of thing, okay?”

He just waves his hands at her until she eventually gets up to leave, still looking concerned by his erratic behavior. Closing the door heavily behind her, the laughter from the closet gets louder and he stalks over to it to pull open the door and look inside.

“It’s not funny, alright?” he says angrily at Phil, who had been leaning against the inside of the door and fell down when it opened, still laughing somewhat hysterically, “She could’ve figured out you’ve been living in my closet this whole time!”

“Still... funny...” Phil wheezes, wrapping their arms around themself and continuing to laugh as Dan flops dejectedly onto the unmade bed. They're still trying to calm down when Dan realizes something.

"Hang on," he says, sitting back up and looking out at the window, "How aren't you burning to death right now?"

Phil looks up, alarmed as they remember it's still the middle of the morning, but feels better when they see the weather outside. It's raining, heavy clouds blocking the usual sunny morning, and the faint sound of raindrops bouncing off the porch out back can be heard underneath the louder rain on the roof.

“There it goes again,” Dan shrugs and pulls down the raincoat hanging on the back of his door, “I guess it makes enough cover for you to be okay, though, so that’s good.”

When Phil doesn’t say anything, Dan turns around to see them up against the window, hands pressed to the rivulets the raindrops are tracing on the outside of the glass. He has that feeling that you get when you’re looking in on something that seems deeply personal and almost reverent. It feels uncomfortable and intrusive, looking outside at something no one else should be privy too.

He doesn’t know if Phil notices him leaving, but he makes sure to keep the door open for as little time as possible.

///

When he gets out of school at the end of the day, there’s still a little rain out, so when everyone is dismissed and ends up outside, there’s a lot of groaning from people who forgot their coats that morning.

Dan pulls the back of his jacket over his head as he follows PJ down the stairs in an effort to keep the rain off his hair. It’s not working very well, but he’s committed to it so he keeps it up.

“So I bet you’re gonna go home and get some quality work done and all that homework of yours, right?” PJ, always the smart one, had his own umbrella that he claimed was too small for the both of them. Dan kind of hated him in that moment, until he thought of it.

“Hey,” Dan forced his way under the umbrella, “PJ, you trust me, right? Wait, don’t answer that. Just come over to mine, alright?”


	8. eight

"So let me get this straight: Phil’s a vampire, you accidentally summoned them in the middle of the night and now you're stuck together? And you want me to help you break into the library in the middle of the night tomorrow so they can go back to his home planet?"

"They’re a vampire, Peej, not an alien."

PJ leans backwards in his chair, resting his head in his folded hands behind him and nodding slightly as he concedes, "Alright, yeah, but what's in it for me? I mean, what keeps me from telling the whole world and selling my story to the Daily Mail?"

Dan rolls his eyes and kicks the balanced chair legs so PJ lurches forward.

“Stop being a twat,” he says as PJ sheepishly rubs the back of his head, arrogant persona gone, “Phil’s already freaked out as is, don’t make it worse.”

Phil straightens up and steps out from where they’d been hiding somewhat behind Dan.

“I’m not scared,” they say, “I totally knew he was bluffing.”

Dan just sighs before PJ jumps back in.

“Okay, but how am I supposed to know all this is real?” he leans forward in his chair and leans his elbows on his knees, “For all I know this is just another one of your pranks and they’re just someone you met at one of your concert things that you’re paying to do this.”

There’s a moment where Dan almost rolls his eyes for the seventh time that minute before Phil’s hand ghosts over his elbow. He steps back and lets Phil switch spots with him in the middle of the closet. It’s kind of crowded in there with three people and a chair, but so far no one’s complained, but Dan hopes they can get this settled before they start feeling _really_ cramped.

“It’s not a prank,” Phil explains, “I mean, I can show you the fangs and the teleporting thing and all if you want, but not right here right now. You’ll probably freak out and there’s not much space to do that here. Besides,” they turn to Dan, “Why’d you even tell him?” Phil is trying to not sound whiny, but they’re failing pretty miserably.

“Because they won’t let me in the library anymore, let alone check something out,” Dan explains, “and you can’t get there either, so we need him to get it. Plus, I trust him.”

“Right,” PJ cuts in with an apologetic look, “And I appreciate that, really, I do. Except, I dunno if I’ll be much help there.”

Dan gives him an incredulous look as Phil continues to glare at them back and forth.

“I’ve already got out as many books as they’ll let you take,” he raises his hands defensively, “I got a bunch of stuff to research for my movie about Soviet space cadets, and I still need them.”

“Well can’t you just return some?”

“I need to finish drafting the script still!” PJ protests, “Look, man, I’m all for helping you, but I’ve still got my own stuff to take care of. I’m supposed to already be done principal drafting and I need to finish this script before we start filming this weekend.”

Dan sighs and runs a hand through his hair. So now he’s broken Phil’s trust for nothing, great.

“But,” PJ continues, looking thoughtful and a bit smug, “I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Daniel.”

“Oh no.”

“What’s he talking about?” Phil asks.

“A patented Liguori plan,” Dan and PJ say in unison, one much more enthusiastic than the other.

What followed was several minutes of negotiations, including PJ convincing Dan that they really did need a trampoline, Dan trying to get PJ to cut back on the amount of paint and wild animals he seemed to think they’d need, and Phil suggesting he use his insane vampire strength instead. By the time the sun had set and PJ needed to go back home, they had reached a consensus and agreed to meet at the library the next night.

Now all any of them could do was pray their plan was just weird enough to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if u can tell but i rEALLY LOVE PJ. and i _love_ writing his dialogue, its so much fun.


	9. nine

"I swear to god, you two must _actually_ be insane."

Loud shushing comes down from the tree and Dan just rolls his eyes and cranes his neck upwards to see where PJ and Phil are perched on a branch, trying to reach the windows a few feet above their heads.

Phil manages to pull themself up another branch and gives a quiet cheer.

"The book is still there, right?" PJ ducks one of their flying feet and tries to peek through the leaves. The slim volume he’d slipped under the pane before closing time that night was still there, propping the window up so they could get back in.

“Yup,” Phil says, shimmying their fingers into the gap and prizing it open. “I’ll go in first,” they continue as they lift the pane high enough to crawl in, “Meet me around back, okay?”

It isn’t until they’re out of sight that Dan remembers they don’t actually know how to get to the back door. But at that point it’s too late for him to say anything, so he just hopes Phil can figure his way out in the dark. They’ve got that night-vision thing going for them anyway, at least there’s that.

PJ jumps down from his branch, landing upright in a pile of soggy leaves next to Dan.

“Hey,” he says, “It’ll work, alright?”  
Dan just shakes his head a little, clearing all his worried thoughts. “Yeah, I know,” he replies as they head towards the door where Phil’s supposed to meet them, “I just want this whole thing to be over with already.”

He sees PJ nod out of the corner of his eye as he peers in the window on the door for any sign of Phil.

“What’re you gonna do when they’re gone?” PJ asks casually.

“What?”

“You know, when Phil’s not stuck to you anymore, are you gonna still keep in touch and hang out and stuff? Where do they even live, is it far?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to him before, but now that PJ mentions it, Dan can’t stop thinking about it. Sure, Phil’s got their weird teleporting ting, so they could come visit regardless of where they live, but will they want to? What if they’re only acting nice out of convenience, so this whole stuck-together thing isn’t agonizingly awkward? What if they just don’t care enough to ever think to come back?

“There we go!” PJ’s voice pulls him back to the present as the door opens and a smiling Phil pops out the other side.

“Now let’s go find the rest of that spell!” PJ drags Dan in behind him, more enthusiastic than anyone has the right to be when breaking into a library, of all places.

Dan sighs and follows PJ’s eager lead, Phil falling into step next to him.

“He’s a bit excited, isn’t he?” they whisper when PJ runs ahead up the stairs, “Seeing as he’s not all that involved.”

“He’s still riding that high that he was right about all this supernatural stuff existing,” Dan replies, but it’s more tired sounding than usual. Phil must notice, as they look vaguely concerned, but says nothing.

Stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets, Dan shuffles along to the sound of PJ’s flitting through the shelves and Phil’s distinct silence.

Once they get to the third floor and PJ starts honestly searching, Phil pulls him aside, between two dusty shelves around the corner.

“Are you okay?” they ask, and they sound so sincere that Dan feels a little sick.

“It’s nothing,” he says, “Let’s just get the book so we can get this whole thing over with already, yeah?” He turns and leaves so Phil doesn’t see the look on his face. He misses the disappointed look on theirs, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i watched phil's liveshow for the first time in months and lEMME TELL YOU
> 
> also i got to see + meet one of my _other_ favorite bands (walk the moon this time) last night and i'm in a really fantastic mood so i'm posting the last two chapters today, yay!


	10. ten

Once they find the book (PJ triumphantly running a lap around the top floor and holding it over his head as he quietly cheers) they all head across the field behind the building to the cemetery, the clouds overhead giving them enough cover that any random person passing by wouldn’t be able to tell they were a bunch of teenagers or, in Phil’s case, look like one.

PJ, who had been engrossed in the book since they’d left the library, heads directly for the mausoleum behind the overgrown headstones.

“We need candles,” he explains, “I don’t have any, but there might be some back here. Hang on a minute.”

Dan sticks his hands in his hoodie pockets once PJ leaves them alone, convincing himself it’s because it’s kind of windy out and not because he feels extremely awkward or anything. He feels a little justified when Phil does almost the exact same thing.

“I really do like you,” Phil blurts out, the surprise on their face making it evident that they didn’t expect them to say it either, “I haven’t just been acting nice to you out of convenience or to make this all more bearable or anything like that.”

They’re waving their hands around and Dan feels the urge to grab one just to calm them down. And just to hold their hand, but that’s besides the point.

“And I know we haven’t really known each other all that long,” Dan must’ve spaced out as Phil seems to be on an entirely different topic, “But I’d really like to keep being your friend after this is all over. I mean-“

But at that moment, when Dan feels like something big he can’t quite explain is about to happen, PJ shows back up, a couple of half melted tapered candles in hand.

“I got ‘em!” PJ waves them around a bit before kneeling down on the ground and clearing some dead leaves from a patch of ground, getting down to business.

“Now,” he explains as he lights the candles, “my Latin’s not as good as my Italian, but most of it’s the same. It says we have to set up the three candles in a sort of triangle, then Phil stands in between them, Dan chants out the last bit, and we’re good to go!”

“Why do I have to be the one to say it?” Dan tries not to sound sulky, “I messed it up the first time, how do you know I’m not gonna do it again?”

"It insists that the entire spell, binding and unbinding, must be done by the same person," PJ says as he leans over the lit match to make sure the steadily growing wind doesn't blow it out, "Something about the magical equivalent of crossing the streams or something, the details are lost on me."

He stands up and brushes the bits of dried leaves off his knees before handing the book to Dan and stepping back.

"Well then," he says, "Your turn."

The entire time PJ's been explaining the spell, Dan's been trying to ignore Phil looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Whatever they were going to lies unfinished between them and Dan can feel it pulling them even closer together.

Before stepping into the little patch of dead grass, Phil sticks out their hand and shakes Dan's a little awkwardly.

"It's been nice being magically bound to you, Dan Howell," they say before stepping back into the triangle. It's a small miracle they don't knock over any candles and set the entire cemetery on fire.

Dan can only nod and bury his face in the large book, trying to make out the right words in the dim light. A cloud drifts past overhead and suddenly there's enough moonlight to see everything from the ink on the page to Phil's small smile. It makes it harder to turn back to the words, but Dan manages somehow.

Halfway through the first page the wind picks up more, somehow still not blowing out the candles. Phil looks a little startled and Dan's afraid he's done something wrong before he sees their sneakers floating just above the ground. It's not long after that that Dan reaches the end of the page and Phil disappears with a little "pop".

"I guess it worked then?" PJ asks innocuously enough but Dan had forgotten he was still there and almost knocks himself over turning around.

"Yeah," Dan shrugs and smooths down his hair from where it had been blown around, "Guess that's it.”

"What was that handshake thing about anyway?" PJ asks, "What did they give you?"

"What?”

PJ taps the back of Dan’s hand, which is clenched in a fist and barely holding onto the book. He opens it and stares dumbly at the piece of paper there as PJ explains, “They weren’t very subtle about it, I’m surprised you didn’t notice. A little distracted, were you?”

PJ laughs and backs off as Dan angrily waves him away and turns around to smooth out the little scrap of paper that looks like it was torn out of the back of the spell book. The handwriting is a little shaky, and Dan now knows why Phil had been lagging behind the whole time they were walking over to the cemetery. He only distantly hears PJ telling him he’ll see him tomorrow, trying to decipher the smudges on the worn out paper.

PJ’s footsteps are a retreating background noise and Dan smiles as he reads out loud, "If you thought you'd get out of this that easy, you're a lot dumber than you look. Plus, now I know where you live, you haven't seen the last of me by far-"

He doesn’t get to finish as he hears that now all too familiar whooshing sound as an equally familiar voice says, “Xoxo, Phil.”

Dan doesn’t even have to look up before he’s leaning in to kiss them, threading his fingers through Phil’s stupid windswept hair and tries to stop himself from laughing in relief. He knows it’s weird, and no one would ever really understand, but he’s glad he was stupid enough to think a library book might actually be magic. After all, it brought him Phil. It was probably worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for reading this, i genuinely hope you enjoyed it and all, and i supposed i'll see you next time i write something (haha, right). bye!!

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading!!
> 
> tumblr @[dweebhowell](http://dweebhowell.tumblr.com)


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